


constancy, necessary

by lethargies



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Break Up, M/M, they... break up?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-12
Updated: 2018-10-12
Packaged: 2019-07-29 23:30:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16274612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lethargies/pseuds/lethargies
Summary: It was necessary to make their story incomplete. Love is such a feeble, flimsy thing-- its impermanence, perhaps, is the essence of knowing Kuroo Tetsurou.





	constancy, necessary

 

> _"Where are the words when they don't rhyme  
>  These are the wounds you fill with salt  
>  I'm not okay, that's not my fault" _
> 
>  
> 
> — Whatever That Was, She's Only Sixteen

 

* * *

 

Tsukishima knows his constants.

 

He has them written on clean sheets, crisp, highlighted in bright orange and double underlined in red. Kei does this for most of his subjects, keeps them neatly printed so as to remember. He has gas constants and unremarkable values enclosed in hearts, drawn in pink and occasionally, deep green.

 

He thinks it’s a silly thing to do, but it’s become a habit.

 

He has his constants close to his heart, filed in the little cracks in his beating chest. Kei has enough space for them if he tries hard enough, if he pushes a little harder to keep them there, highlighted in orange, double-underlined. There is the sound of Sugawara’s laughter in the upper left corner, Yamaguchi’s freckles smack in the middle. Karasuno takes up a quarter of this room easily. It’s not a big deal when Kuroo’s smile takes up the other.

 

So when Tsukishima meets Kuroo halfway there, he is no longer surprised.

 

* * *

 

 

This hallway, too, is a constant. Tsukki wonders when it became one, when he started seeing more and more of himself in the glass windows and cracked floors. He arrives before Kuroo, and the way his footsteps trail after him echo down the lonely corridor reminds him a lot of letting go.

 

His chest hurts, just a bit, but that’s okay too.

 

Tsukishima is used to this, waiting for what’s yet to come. The inescapability of it, perhaps, is the reason he’s still standing there, watching for the bright-red of Kuroo’s jacket. But under the orange glow of the languid afternoon, it is almost too easy to doze off and pretend that nothing is wrong. Almost too easy for him to forget.

 

“Hey.”

 

Kuroo doesn’t bring a torrent of a universe with him today. He steps into the light noiselessly, and when Tsukki squints he can see ghosts of memories behind him, golden in the setting sun. He blinks away the drowsiness in his eyes as he lifts himself up with Kuroo’s hand.

 

“Tetsu,” he says tiredly. “How was practice?”

 

Tetsurou shrugs. “Okay, I guess. Had a good game.”

 

Kei doesn’t miss the way Kuroo’s shoulders slump, curling into himself with the weight of the world. There is no mistaking the heaviness in his eyes. Kuroo’s wearing a smile drawn raggedly around the edges today and it’s the one Tsukki loathes the most, because it’s woven together with barely-there threads, plastered haphazardly across his lips like a last minute thought.

 

“You wanted to talk?”

 

With all of Tetsurou’s fire and heavy heart, it is hard to dodge and squirm around him. Tsukki asks quickly, throwing away second-thoughts and half-baked regrets. When it comes to this it is easier to collide with the fierceness of Kuroo’s eyes head-on, and wait for the drag, the pull of his heart on Tsukki’s. It’s a game of trust-fall, and if Tsukki closes his eyes as he topples backwards he figures it’s the least he could do for Kuroo.

 

_(It hurts less like this, Tsukki reminds himself. It is easier.)_

 

“I don’t know what to do,” Kuroo starts. He leans against the open window, tracing a finger along the crack growing along its frame. “I’m tired. I don’t think it’s working out, even if I try.”

 

Tsukki nods. He understands this much: the restlessness, the overwhelming sea of _it_ , stealing away the crevices of his heart with a burden like love made halfway but never enough. He sees that enough in Kuroo’s eyes, knows the weight of it intimate enough to call it _constant_.

 

“I wish I could’ve done more,” he continues. He drums his fingers on the glass window, and in the dimming light Tsukki can still see the marks Kuroo leaves. “I wish I was good enough, Kei. Strong enough to make this last.”

 

“You don’t think it’s enough?”

 

“No,” Kuroo shakes his head. Tsukki wishes there’s a _shift-solve_ for the hurt to go away, a constant highlighted in orange and underlined in red to keep the heart from breaking. “I’m not happy anymore.”

 

The thing with tragedies is the inevitable ending-- of knowing the crash and fall and ruins to be left behind-- that is not so easy to bear.

 

It is not so easy in the way that it tears the heart from inside out, even when the eyes hold steady and hands stay firm. It is not so easy when Tsukki has to swallow thrice to keep that lump down his throat, when he has to nod his way through it because _he’s expected this_. It is not so easy because a sad ending is still a sad ending, and no amount of constants could change that.

 

It is not so easy because acceptance is not the same as hurting less, and the gravity of it is the only thing keeping his feet grounded.

 

“What’s going to happen now?” Tsukishima asks, if only to pretend.

 

“We go on our separate ways,” Kuroo shrugs. He shrugs and Tsukki feels a surge of anger for half a beat before fading into bittersweet resignation. “From here on out, I guess. It’s not such a bad ending, right? We were happy.”

 

Tsukki wishes he was a better man, brave enough to ask _why_ and _why can’t you try again_ . He wishes he was strong enough to keep trying, except he’s human and he’s just like Tetsurou. He’s weak and his heart, with all of its dreams and constants, is only a muscle that can do so much. It’s still frail and fragile against the terror of _being left alone_.

 

The heart can only take so much.

 

“Okay,” he says instead. His fingers are numb even as they’re intertwined in between Kuroo’s, struggling to hold love in between the tiny spaces before it spills out and leaves.

 

The truth is this: it was never a permanent thing. Tetsurou was never made for him, not when their hearts don’t fit together like puzzle pieces, not when they were sixteen with more years to face the world-- even if Tsukki clutches tightly, the good-byes remain a constant in his life.

 

It’s tucked neatly in the deepest crevice of his heart, buried enough for him to forget about its existence until now. Tsukishima can handle this, because the good-byes are the easy part.

 

Letting go hurts a little bit more. Untangling the memories wrapped around his heart takes more time and effort than waving farewell, but he is also good at this. He knows where the thread ends and where it begins, and unraveling it isn’t so bad.

 

But leaving is the hurdle on the road. It’s not so much a hurdle as it is a goddamn wall of brick and steel, rising impossibly high. Leaving is the hardest part because it’s the first step away from home without coming back. Tsukki swallows and keeps his head up, his heart and pride on the line, with the picture of Kuroo’s crinkled eyes displayed clearly in the back of his mind.

 

It was the only ending their story could’ve had, he supposes, incomplete without the rest of the pages. Love is this feeble, flimsy thing-- its impermanence, perhaps, is the essence of knowing Kuroo Tetsurou.

 

“I wanted to stay, you know.” Kuroo says, and it doesn’t feel like a lie.

 

“Me too.”

 

Tsukishima watches him walk away, the red of his jacket faded under the dimming glint of the sunset. The hallway is dark by the time Kuroo turns the corner and leaves Tsukki alone.

 

Constant, he stays.

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> hello.... i just got out of exam week and all im doing is projecting my chemistry lessons on them n trying to forget the fact that i probably flunked my tests LMAOman ive been so stressed recently so ig writing something for myself (this?) is.. idk good for me anyway i hope some of yall liked this :^) 
> 
> catch me on twitter @tersuhima


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